I made Charlie Rose (right, co-founder of LA Record) Swedish meatballs and brought them to the party. If you're interested in a great recipe for meatball sauce, drop me a message. I also just came up with a great chicken marinade that uses almost the same ingredients - all of which you probably already have in your fridge. I'm thinking of compiling and publishing an online collection of "Recession Recipes".

At the LA Record booth I picked up two great items: A vinyl compilation of California Soul Music Ubiquity Recordings, and an absolutely stunningly beautiful zine called Chillo by artist Mel Kadel.

Find and flip though Chillo here, and please check out her website here.

Low End Theory Great party every week downtown featuring some of the best DJs nationally.

Flaunt Your Spirit Animal Party by Flaunt MagazineWould have been good music - broken up by helicopters 15 seconds into Rainbow Arabia's set. Awful party.

So, I'm not going to go into all of the ins and outs of my incredible raccoon encounter that occurred after the "party", but I have to at least make brief mention of my experience.

I was of course dressed as a raccoon for the evening and while walking on a dark and quiet street to our car, Lyle and I came across two of the BIGGEST RACCOONS I have ever seen. Instead of running away, they stared at us calmly frozen for minutes. I tried to snap a picture but my flash wasn't working right:

And there's more to this story that makes it all the more strange, but I think that information should stay among the raccoons, Lyle and myself.

Sunday, the 23rd, Gangi and Hecuba play at the record release party for Perfect As Cats: A Tribute to the Cure (available now) at the Echo.

The week before, I saw the Haim Steinbach show at Overduin and Kite in Hollywood, where Haim Steinbach draws from the personal collections of Michael Kelly. Very interesting...

I also saw the Bridget Waldach show (now down) at Benjamin Trigano, a new gallery in Beverly Hills. Waldach studied under Georg Baselitz in the 90's and her work's tenor of futility and frustration definitely reflects this.

Both shows will be reviewed in upcoming issues of Art Voices.

Tonight I'll be attending the original play, NEW, at the Son of Semele Theatre in Silver Lake. NEW was written by Rachel Kolar and choreographed by Lauren Brown. These two lovely ladies also star in the production.

From the PR:

In a post-apocalyptic setting, two young and flamboyant socialites, Rachel Kolar & Lauren Brown, are depressed by the bleak state of the aftermath of war. No longer is there room for extravagance, no longer are there parties and delusions of grandeur. In attempts to glorify the need for excessive materialism they devise a movement of neon colors, empty consumerism, absurd rules of engagement and foppish costumes. When their movement takes a turn too dark for the pretty pair of dipsomaniacal flamingos, chaos ensues. What is left for our sad debutantes? The only thing left after destruction, to build a bomb to blow up the world.

And for Halloween, I'll be at the Hammer Museum for their Halloween in Hades party where Hecuba and We Are The World, two of my favorite musical acts right now, will be be performing.

Right now, I'm off to get some sleep before I get up and check out a few shows including LA25 Half-Life at LACE where I'm doing some special investigating...

August 09, 2008

Actually, I spread the word quite extensively myself. I'll be moving back to Burbank, California at the end of September. Words cannot express how much I will miss being part of Project 4, and of the art scene here in DC. Los Angeles is an incredibly captivating city which I could not resist. The Popcorn Project will continue, but will cover visual art and music in Los Angeles starting in October.

Since returning to DC two weeks ago, I haven't been able to get this album out of my head. During all the long car rides winding through the veins of my new city, "Faces in the Rocks" by Mariee Sioux really became a huge part of my experience.

I was first introduced to Mariee Sioux when she performed solo at the First Annual Manimal Vinyl Festival in Joshua Tree this past June. What strikes one first are her beautiful trills which vary her pose from tender and childlike to poised with strength. Her transfixing voice leads you through mysterious and haunting paths of forests and imaginary landscapes.

On this debut album, vocals, guitar and Native American flute are featured, laying the platform for the rich tone that Sioux creates. It is the lyrics that make this album among the most transcending. Her poetic narratives vividly describe natural elements existing and transforming, deeply internal corporeal phenomena occurring and thrilling and vital events taking place in a romantically staged early American hunter-gatherer civilization. The scenes that Sioux describes are both fantastical and antiquated, tied to our contemporary experience only by her use of innovative meditations:

"bravitzlana rubakalva, our very own countrybravitzlana rubakalvaoh, there, we have see-through bellieswhere we can watch all the miracles happeningand we can watch our organs clappingand we can watch our bread dissolvingand we can watch our cells dividingand we can see our babies floatingand we can watch them form from nothingsit back and just watch them form from nothing"

Mariee Sioux celebrates the heart of traditional folk music with her beautiful vocals and melodies, simple instrumentation and lyrical musings on love and nature but expresses originality and exciting reinterpretations on "Faces in the Rocks".

Project 4 is currently in the process of completely transforming the gallery space into a stage for "Living Sculpture", an installation/performance exhibition orchestrated by J.J. McCracken:

August 21 - September 11, 2008

Performances:

August 21, 7:00pm and 8:15 pm

August 29, 7:30 pm

"Living Sculpture" by J.J. McCracken is a series of performances that showcase the beauty of clay's transformative qualities joined with the dramatic presence of staged figures. Several vignettes composed by McCracken will incorporate figures and props covered in soft tan-colored clay and will allude to concepts of time, transformation and corporeality. The vignettes will be arranged throughout the gallery over a three-week period, and can be simultaneously interpreted as paintings, sculptures, installation and performance.

July 18, 2008

Again, I made it to far less than expected last weekend due to the mobility situation here. I took a couple pictures from the Vice Photo Exhibition but Fette (behind The Flog) documented the scene (and I mean Scene) far better than I.